Cudjo's Cave Part 8

"I don't know, sir. I reckon, however, that the Yankee schoolmaster has been favored with a little demonstration of southern sentiment."

"How! not mobbed?"

"Call it what you please, sir," said Bythewood, with an air of pleasantry. "I think our people have been roused at last; and if so, they have probably given him a lesson he will never forget."

"What do you mean by 'our people'?" the old man gravely inquired.

"He means," said Virginia, with quiet but cutting irony, "the most chivalrous people in the world! among whom the innocent and defenceless are more secure than any where else on the globe!"

"Precisely," said Mr. Bythewood, with a placid smile. "But among whom obnoxious persons, dangerous to our inst.i.tutions, cannot be tolerated.

As for this affair,"--carelessly, as if what had happened to Penn was of no particular consequence to anybody present, least of all to him,--"I don't know anything about it. Of course, I would never go near a popular demonstration of the kind. I don't say I approve of it, and I don't say I disapprove of it. These are no ordinary times, Mr. Villars. The south is already plunged into a revolution."

"Indeed, I fear so!"

"Fear so? I glory that it is so! We are about to build up the most magnificent empire on which the sun has ever shone!"

"Cemented with the blood of our own brethren!" said the old man, solemnly.

"There may be a little bloodshed, but not much. The Yankees won't fight.

They are not a military people. Their armies will scatter before us like chaff before the wind. I know you don't think as I do. I respect the lingering attachment you feel for the old Union--it is very natural,"

said Bythewood, indulgently.

The old man smiled. His eyes were closed, and his hands were folded before him near his breast, in his favorite att.i.tude. And he answered,--

"You are very tolerant towards me, my young friend. It is because you consider me old, and helpless, and perhaps a little childish, no doubt.

But hear my words. You are going to build up a magnificent empire, founded on--slavery. But I tell you, the ruin and desolation of our dear country--that will be your empire. And as for the inst.i.tution you mean to perpetuate and strengthen, it will be crushed to atoms between the upper and nether millstones of the war you are bringing upon the nation."

He spoke with the power of deep and earnest conviction, and the complacent Bythewood was for a moment abashed.

"I was well aware of your opinions," he remarked, rallying presently.

"It is useless for us to argue the point. And Virginia, I conceive, does not like politics. Will you favor us with a song, Virginia?"

"With pleasure, if you wish it," said Virginia, with perfect civility, although a close observer might have seen how repulsive to her was the presence of this handsome, but selfish and unprincipled man. He was their guest; and she had been bred to habits of generous and self-sacrificing hospitality. However detested a visitor, he must be politely entertained. On this occasion, she led the way to the parlor, where the piano was,--all the more readily, perhaps, because it was still farther removed from the kitchen. Bythewood followed, supporting, with an ostentatious show of solicitude, the steps of the feeble old man.

Bythewood named the pieces he wished her to sing, and bent graciously over the piano to turn the music-leaves for her, and applauded with enthusiasm. And so she entertained him. And all the while were pa.s.sing around them scenes so very different! There was Penn, heroically stifling the groans of a wounded spirit, within sound of her sweet voice, and Bythewood so utterly ignorant of his presence there! A little farther off, and just outside the house, a young woman was even then parting, with whispers and mystery, from an adventurous rover. Still a little farther, in barber Jim's back room, Silas Ropes was treating his accomplices; and while these drank and blasphemed, close by, in the secret cellar, Stackridge's companions were practising the soldier's drill.

Salina parted from the rover, and came into the house while Virginia was singing, throwing her bonnet negligently back, as she sat down.

"Why, Salina! where have you been?" said Virginia, finis.h.i.+ng a strain, and turning eagerly on the piano stool. "We have been wondering what had become of you!"

"You need never wonder about me," said Salina, coldly. "I must go out and walk, even if I don't have time till after dark."

She drummed upon the carpet with her foot, while her upper lip twitched nervously. It was a rather short lip, and she had an unconscious habit of hitching up one corner of it, still more closely, with a spiteful and impatient expression. Aside from this l.a.b.i.al peculiarity (and perhaps the disproportionate prominence of a very large white forehead), her features were pretty enough, although they lacked the charming freshness of her younger sister's.

Virginia knew well that the pretence of not getting time for her walk till after dark was absurd, but, perceiving the unhappy mood she was in, forbore to say so. And she resumed her task of entertaining Bythewood.

VIII.

_THE ROVER._

Meanwhile the nocturnal acquaintance from whom Salina had parted took a last look at the house, and shook his envious head darkly at the room where the light and the music were; then, thrusting his hands into his pockets, with a swaggering air, went plodding on his lonely way across the fields, in the starlight.

The direction he took was that from which Penn had arrived; and in the course of twenty minutes he approached the door of the solitary house with the dark windows and the dogs within. He walked all around, and seeing no light, nor any indication of life, drew near, and rapped softly on a pane.

The dogs were roused in an instant, and barked furiously. Nothing daunted, he waited for a lull in the storm he had raised, and rapped again.

"Who's there?" creaked the stridulous voice of good Mrs. Sprowl.

"_You know!_" said the rover, in a suppressed, confidential tone. "One who has a right."

Now, the excellent relict of the late lamented Sprowl reflected, naturally, that, if anybody had a right there, it was he who paid her for his board in advance.

"You, agin, after all, is it!" she exclaimed, angrily. "Couldn't you find nowhere else to go to? But if you imagine I've thought better on't, and will let you in, you're grandly mistaken! Go away this instant, or I'll let the dogs out!"

"Let 'em out, and be----!"

No matter about the last word of the rover's defiant answer. It was a very irritating word to the temper of the good Mrs. Sprowl. This was the first time (she thought) she had ever heard the mild and benignant schoolmaster swear; but she was not much surprised, believing that it was scarcely in the power of man to endure what he had that night endured, and not swear.

"Look out for yourself then, you sir! for I shall take you at your word!" And there was a sound of slipping bolts, followed by the careful opening of the door.

Out bounced the dogs, and leaped upon the intruder; but, instead of tearing him to pieces, they fell to caressing him in the most vivacious and triumphant manner.

"Down, Brag! Off, Grip! Curse you!" And he kicked them till they yelped, for their too fond welcome.

"How dare you, sir, use my dogs so!" screamed the lady within, enraged to think they had permitted that miserable schoolmaster to get the better of them.

"I'll kick them, and you too, for this trick!" muttered the man. "I'll learn ye to shut me out, and make a row, when I'm coming to see you at the risk of my----"

She cut him short, with a cry of amazement.

"Lysander! is it you!"

"Hold your noise!" said Lysander, pressing into the house. "Call my name again, and I'll choke you! Where's your schoolmaster? Won't he hear?"

"Dear me! if it don't beat everything!" said Mrs. Sprowl in palpitating accents. "Don't you know I took you for the master!"

"No, I didn't know it. This looks more like a welcome, though!" Lysander began to be mollified. "There, there! don't smother a fellow! One kiss is as good as fifty. The master is out, then? Anybody in the house?"

"No, I'm so thankful! It seems quite providential! O, dearie, dearie, sonny dearie! I'm so glad to see you agin!"

"Come! none of your sonny dearies! it makes me sick! Strike a light, and get me some supper, can't you?"

"Yes, my boy, with all my heart! This is the happiest day I've seen----"